


footsteps lighter

by WithYourRhythm



Series: prompt/ship requests [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Love, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Nara Shikamaru-centric, Pining, Sad with a Happy Ending, Tumblr Prompt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25888108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithYourRhythm/pseuds/WithYourRhythm
Summary: Grief is a heavy thing- it settles over his shoulders like a wet blanket, keeping him trapped within the bounds of the fabric. Shikamaru doesn't know how to live with it, he doesn'twantto learn how to, and yet...And yet, the world stops for no one.Or,Shikamaru grieves, finds love, uses his brain during the heart's gig, and learns to cope- not particularly in that order.
Relationships: Akimichi Chouji & Nara Shikamaru, Nara Shikaku & Nara Shikamaru, Nara Shikamaru & Sarutobi Asuma, Nara Shikamaru/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: prompt/ship requests [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1825972
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	footsteps lighter

**Author's Note:**

> Request: "Shikamaru Nara/Naruto Uzumaki" by Anon.
> 
> Hi anon, hope you like this! You left the plot to me so I just grabbed canon bc I live for h/c, especially with delicious addition of lots of grief and learning to cope with life & canon was full of opportunities to write them (shame on u for skipping out on this kishi).
> 
> This has been sitting in my drafts for weeks now but I wanted to post it as a one-shot, so I kept delaying the posting date, but by now probably everyone knows I just don't do plans & schedules. Idk when the next chapter will be out, this'll be max 3 chapters, not betaed.
> 
> It's 4am right now, I have no idea what is going on, but enjoy anyway~

Shikamaru is aware of many things. His brain is always on an overdrive- he thinks and thinks and  _ thinks _ and it's all too much and too fast that sometimes not even he realizes what's going through his mind.

He doesn't mind it. It's more efficient, and it's not like he has any reasons to try and slow down. He doesn't feel the need to explain his thoughts, and if he has to, it's not like he can't give them a recap. His thoughts are unrestrained, free and wild and generous unlike his mouth- which is for the best, because he hates to think what'd happen if he were to tell Neji how unnecessary and restrictive his long hair actually is with his fighting style, or let his unashamed opinion on Ino's poorly-hidden crush on Sakura be heard.

It's just the way he's wired. He thinks and deduces and guesses, and repeats this cycle for every second he is awake.

Calm scenes help, sometimes. When he gets a headache after wasting too much time on trying to solve a mystery that simply can't be solved unless there's a new piece of information, when he's too stubborn to let go and jump onto other things he can focus on, only then he looks for one.

He has his preferences, though. He often prefers keeping his eyes on the sky, letting his eyes glaze over the soft, fading lines of clouds, ignoring the bright blue of sky that makes his eyes sting only during the first minute of his skygazing. Sometimes, when he wishes for a change of scene, he chooses to sit against the rough bark of a tree, dutifully tracing the edges of the tree's shadow on the ground with his eyes.

Then there's days like this one, where he doesn't want to  _ think _ at all. It's rare that he does, because he enjoys connecting dots, feels a pride that he never allows to surface on his face when he gets a glimpse of the whole picture.

His life is a cork board filled with everything he sees and hears pinned on, and color coded strings connect each one with the other. _ I'm made for this, _ some days he tells himself,  _ and only this _ . This is him. This is all he wishes to be.

But those days, oh, during those  _ awful _ days, he ends up on the riverbank of his Clan's forest, the fresh smell of grass and damp earth on his nose. Water crashes over the few big boulders around the river, and sometimes one of his Clan's deers peek out from the huge bushes, stealing glimpses of him sitting on one of the rocks, his bare feet resting within the rushing water.

Sounds and smells and bright colors assault Shikamaru's senses whenever he's there, despite how his mother always says the riverside is a place of calmness and peace. He doesn't know why he disagrees with her, but  _ calm _ is not the word he'd use to describe the riverbank.

No, it's  _ lively. _

This riverbank makes him snap back to the reality, realize that he's trapping himself in his mind, with how unpredictable it is. He appreciates that more than he can put it in words. It pulls his attention from one detail of the nature to the other, and he desperately aches for that now.

He just needs a moment of stillness in his thoughts. That's all.

It's a weird request, he knows so. Unlike others in the village, Shikamaru is rarely seen with a companion these days, because almost no one can bear his silence or the biting comments he throws out without realizing so often lately. He knows what they say behind him  _ -it's grief, he's just trying to cope and find his footing again- _ and it's not like they're wrong, but they're not fully right, either.

Shikamaru is not grieving. He's just trying to find a way to live his life without the ones he loves.

When he doesn't have a mission, his daily routine almost always consists of his mother, father, Chouji, Ino, and lots of thinking. Sometimes he gets other visitors too -friends or acquaintances- but not often enough that he feels the lack of their presence when they don't come back the next day. Ever since Asuma-sensei's departure  _ -departure, _ because that word doesn't make it sound like Asuma choked on his blood while Shikamaru could do nothing to save him- it's been this way.

And he's satisfied with it. He really is, or was, since it can't -doesn't- go on like that anymore, not without his father.

He's been needing this moment of silence in his mind for weeks now, he distantly realizes. People are worried for him, they want him to go back to normal, as if he's not  _ normal _ anymore. He doesn't know how to tell them this is his new  _ normal, _ this is what he's been doing since he stopped getting to see his father every morning for breakfast, what he will continue to do until something else that's worth mentioning happens.

So he stays. He watches the river, kicks his legs towards the sky and splashes water all over his bare ankles and folded up pants.

Days go on, but he doesn't.

\--

His trick doesn't always work. Seldom, his mind conjures up another train of thoughts for him to indulge in despite the best efforts of nature, the world around him doing its best to drown out his mind's murmurs but still failing miserably.

Often, they're about the Akatsuki. Or Sasuke, if he's feeling bitter enough. Other times it's Ino and Chouji, or Asuma and his father if he feels like punishing himself. It's Neji, and Tenten, and Lee, and Kakashi-sensei, and Sakura, and even the Hokage.

Only once, though, it is Naruto.

The pattern never changes. He deciphers every since thing there is that he can, about every single person that exists in his life, but it's only one time that he allows Naruto to slip into his mind.

Only once, because once Naruto is there, he never leaves. He slinks inside Shikamaru's thoughts, makes a corner in his mind, and not even once attempts to go away.

He is a constant.

\--

Naruto loves getting his hands dirty. That's a fact, as solid as the fact morning follows night, and that water isn't meant to stay in cupped hands, or Sasuke can't rock pink hair.

Shikamaru knows that it's always been an unchanging part of Naruto's life, how much he enjoys it when he can see, can  _ feel _ what he's doing. Maybe that's why he never picks up a sword despite Tenten volunteering to teach him, why he refuses Iruka's gift, a beautiful katana with beautiful yet rough engravings on its hilt- because in the end, he's just a messy fighter, a hurricane made up from tightly clenched fists and enraged yells. Shikamaru is always at the sidelines, watching, observing, and the way Naruto is in love with  _ making, creating- _ it's admirable.

Shikamaru respects that. It's not easy for one to let their hands get dirty, face head on with the consequences of their actions, and that's exactly what Naruto does. He doesn't ask forgiveness for who he is, what he does, instead he only searches for acceptance.

Shikamaru sometimes wishes he could have that. Have that confidence in his own judgement, never doubt his beliefs- never look back with regret, only with sadness or fondness, just like the way Naruto does. But it's such a thing that screams  _ Naruto, _ and Shikamaru doesn't know how to do that, or what to do with this desire. He wants,  _ needs, _ but doesn't know how to put his feet down on the ground firmly, with his back standing straight the way Naruto does.

Only if he could learn that, only if he were to stop looking back to the moment he knew Asuma or his dad died, and stop wondering what he could've done to make the outcome different.

Desperation closes in fast, but wonder is what makes Shikamaru throw another kick and splash water all over himself again. He distantly notes that his mother will scold him for ruining his clothes again.

_ How does Naruto do it, _ his mind repeatedly asks, turning the question over and over and over in his head with different combinations of answers he can think of like it's found a brand new rubik's cube.  _ How  _ can _ he do it? _

It doesn't feel real when Shikamaru tries. Maybe he's just not made for being satisfied with what he has.

\--

Shikamaru doesn't know how or when it happens.

Perhaps it's when Naruto yells Kiba to grab Shikamaru on their way out of Iruka-sensei's classroom years ago, or maybe when Naruto visits him after Asuma-sensei's funeral with a dark, pained expression on his face, exactly a mirror to Shikamaru's own- but when he thinks of those moments, he realizes that they're not it. Others did those to him too, and Naruto did those to others as well. There's nothing special that can stand out in any of his memories with Naruto, and yet…

Maybe it's Naruto's kindness, then- because everything is about Naruto's kindness these days. Sasuke's survival so far, Sakira's newly-found determination, Tsunade's arrival- but yet, that kindness is also too common to be a turning point for Shikamaru.

Maybe his declarations during the Chuunin Exams, his desperation and hope- but when are those not apparent when it's Naruto? They can't be the reason of a change when they've always been constants.

What changed, then? If it isn't Naruto, if it isn't Shikamaru, then what might've caused Shikamaru's thoughts to go from 'Naruto is here.' to 'Is Naruto here yet?' in such a subtle way that Shikamaru hadn't noticed it before it was too late?

In the end, he quietly admits to himself that none of those are the reason, because they all have been there ever since day one- the moment Shikamaru met Naruto, he's been seeing Naruto for who he is, and no lies means there's nothing for Shikamaru to dig out. But the turning point takes place later on, when he's sitting on a rock with his feet drawing circles in the wild water, eyes still stinging from the unshed tears even months after his father's death, which means not even one of them can be it.

It must be something that happened recently- something that caught his attention without him noticing, something that changed his rich yet neutral mind into a mess that always wrote out Naruto's name between the paragraphs.

Shikamaru doesn't know what it is.

\--

_ What if it's always been there, _ he tries to find an explanation again the next day, mind still stuck on the same loop, his body perched on the same rock as yesterday.  _ What if I only noticed it now? _

That makes more sense, answers the 'when', but it still doesn't explain 'why'. Why Naruto, why notice here, why now?

He has endless questions, but there's no one to answer them.

_ Asuma-sensei could, _ it occurs to him as the sun slowly starts disappearing from the sky that day.  _ He would know the answer,  _ and Shikamaru can't even ask him now.

It's been a day -no, two now- of searching for an answer for the question that is Naruto, and he already hates the way he can't think of one. Not knowing used to make him angry long before he was doomed to live with his father's absence, but now it only makes him tired. He knows he can't stop until he finds out, but he's so, so tired.

_ Asuma-sensei would know, _ one more time, and then,  _ I can ask him. _

\--

He's aware that it's not very smart of him to come here, looking for answers. The earth can't reply to his questions, neither can a stone. The grave isn't the answer.

Shikamaru doesn't care.

His mother's worried expression is still alive behind his eyelids. He knows she's relieved that he didn't go to the riverbank again, that he broke the routine he had established after his father died -and she probably knows that he's aware of her relief- but she doesn't understand. This change of plans isn't Shikamaru learning to cope, no- this is desperation.

"Why?" He asks, eyeing the name of his first and only master on the gravestone,  _ "Why?" _

He doesn't expect an answer. He doesn't even know why he decided to come here, but maybe he had been hoping…

Hoping for what? There's nothing left here, no signs of that warm hand Asuma-sensei always dropped on his head, or the smell of smoke and fire mixed with Konoha's fresh breeze that always accompanied him. There's only flesh and bones under earth, no  _ sensei _ or  _ father _ or answers he's seeking for.

"...why?" He repeats again anyway, because if those men taught him anything, it's to ask.

So he does.

\--

"Your mom is worried about you," Chouji's voice reaches his ears, calm and friendly, but Shikamaru doesn't move from where he's laying, his body carefully balanced on a random rooftop. "She says you didn't go back to home all night after visiting Asuma-sensei."

Shikamaru bites back the automatic reply that wants to escape, _ there isn't anyone left with that name for me to visit, though. _ His tongue became sharper lately, his glare wounded rather than sad, but not for Chouji.  _ Never _ for Chouji.

His friend's footsteps draw closer, a faint shadow belonging to him barely visible under the moonlight and the light of candles that Shikamaru lighted up and set down around his resting spot falling over Shikamaru's body. "I knew I'd find you here."

"Didn't want eyes on me," Shikamaru says at last. He can't bring himself to admit that his mother's obvious worry feels like a stab wound whenever she as much as glances at him. "It's quiet here. Better."

"It is," Chouji agrees. "But it's cold, too."

They're shinobi- using chakra to keep themselves warm is as easy as breathing, but Shikamaru knows what Chouji is trying to say. "It can't always be daytime, can it?"

"...no, I suppose not."

It can't always be daytime, but it can't always be nighttime, either. Shikamaru wonders how many hours -days, weeks,  _ months- _ there is left until he can witness the sunrise again.

It doesn't feel like it's going to be anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I take requests, check this series' profile for more info.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr and Twitter as @withyourrhythm


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